Ooh, I Can Hear Myself Thinking

THIS IS ONE OF MY FAVORITE TIMES of the year at the Chapel of St. Arbucks here in Terre Haute (That’s French for, “Why did I buy more onion dip?”).

At this time every year we have a Scholastic Solstice of a sort. For about ten days this place is quiet. The Public Schools have resumed classes while the colleges and universities don’t kick into gear for another week or so. As a result, the usually busy St. Arbucks is an oasis of relative quiet. The decibel level drops from “Karakatoa on the Wabash” loud down to “My headache has disappeared” manageable. The difference is both thrilling and humbling.

Throwback Thursday – from August 2016 – “Ooh, I Can Hear Myself Thinking”

Ooh, I Can Hear Myself Thinking

THIS IS ONE OF MY FAVORITE TIMES of the year at the Chapel of St. Arbucks here in Terre Haute (That’s French for, “Why did I buy more onion dip?”).

At this time every year we have a Scholastic Solstice of a sort. For about ten days this place is quiet. The Public Schools have resumed classes while the colleges and universities don’t kick into gear for another week or so. As a result, the usually busy St. Arbucks is an oasis of relative quiet. The decibel level drops from “Karakatoa on the Wabash” loud down to “My headache has disappeared” manageable. The difference is both thrilling and humbling.

During the summertime when the schools are out, St Arbucks becomes a favorite haunt of the pubescent masses who come in, order a “Strawberry and Cream Frappuccino,” and think they’re drinking coffee – Oh, so grown-up. All they are really doing is getting a fortified sugar rush and turning into nonstop chatterboxes. The giggling alone from a table with 10 high school girls is enough to make my Curmudgeon Lobe work overtime.

It is different with the obligatory teenage boys who are also here, following the girls and trying to look macho. At least they are much quieter as they practice looking both sullen and somewhat dangerous or James Dean emotionally lost and in need of a cuddle.

These two factions are in St. Arbucks all summer, minus the two weeks when their parents drag them to visit the Grandparents in some version of Iowa. When they return though, they have two weeks of giggling and posing to catch up on. It is during those two weeks that we try to get out of town.

When the colleges and universities shovel their students into town they show up by the study-group load, monopolizing tables and power outlets for their computers and cell phone chargers.

As a rule the college age crowd isn’t as noisy as the younger chair-fillers. They just fill the sonic landscape with keyboard clicks, textbook page turning and low frequency murmuring about the validity of the scientific method and the real meaning of “The Fight Club.”

Whatever happened to the days when college freshmen argued philosophy in on-campus student lounges and not out in public where the rest of us can hear them and are thrown into fits of despair for the future?

It is during this all too short respite when the younger students are back learning how to cheat on tests from their underpaid teachers and the older students are still trying to figure out how to smuggle microwave ovens into their dorm rooms that the Chapel of St. Arbucks becomes a place for contemplation, reasonable discussions about unreasonable things and, on occasion, a venue for impromptu middle-aged performance art. Things that could never happen if the students were here sounding like a billion hormone driven cicadas.

At this moment I am one of four customers/worshippers here at St. Arbucks. Two of them are women in their thirties who are chatting and sipping quietly. The fourth person is seated at the table behind me and I haven’t heard a sound out of her. Perhaps someone should check to make sure that she is still alive. If she isn’t, let her be for a while – it’s nice in here right now.

Everybody Shut Up!

THE OTHER NIGHT WHEN THE WHOLE KIT AND KABOODLE of the family went out for dinner the operative word became CACOPHONY.

Everybody was talking at once. I don’t know how any actual communication took place. It was like a convention of seagulls all squawking at once.

Squawk! Squawk! Double Squawk!!

Throwback Thursday From November 2015 – Grumble, Grumble, Mutiny, Mutiny, Mumble, Mumble

Throwback Thursday From November 2015 – 

 

Grumble, Grumble, Mutiny, Mutiny, Mumble, Mumble

MY OFFICE IS CROWDED TODAY. Of course, “my office,” also doubles as a corner table in the Starbucks a few blocks from home. I can usually shut out the hubbub and foot traffic around me, but today, for some reason, it is all getting on my nerves.

Most of the people in here at this time of day are college students. This location sits almost exactly halfway between two schools. On most days they have their noses deeply buried in either textbooks or computers, but not today. Today must be a day after they have gotten their grades or test scores back. It sounds like they all did well.

Rather than studying the majority are socializing (read: putting the moves on somebody) and trying to look and sound like they can read and write in cursive. I’m seeing short hair being combed and patted to keep it in place and long hair being tossed and flipped, almost as punctuation marks.

Throwback Thursday from July 2015 – “My Butt Is Dragging”

Throwback Thursday from July 2015 – “My Butt Is Dragging”

My Butt Is Dragging

GOING UP AND DOWN STAIRS is difficult today because my butt is dragging and it makes a disturbing sound as it bounces on each step.

SHH-Thump, SHH-Thump, SHH-Thump

I’m in recovery from our vacation that covered 1600+ miles in one week, more walking/hiking than I’ve done in years and that, as of yesterday, I am one year older.

No wonder my butt is dragging. It may take a week of intense sleeping for me to get my sedentary mojo back.

Last night when I plopped down in my favorite chair I could swear I heard it whisper, “You’re home!” I was touched that it remembered me. The Rip Van Winkle Memorial Chair and I go back a few years. It knows that when my cheeks hit the upholstery that, while I may say I’m there to watch some TV, I’m really there to sleep.

Another reason that my butt is dragging today is the fallout from the feeding frenzy at the Red Lobster last evening. I think I might have inadvertently tricked my body into thinking that I was a bear loading up for hibernation. I ate more than enough to keep an 800 pound Kodiak bear alive through a long Arctic winter.

I mentioned our trip to the Red Lobster in yesterday’s blog and I have already gotten a number of comments suggesting various diets to help me get rid of this excess weight. I think the best way is for me to be selective about what I eat and to stay away from that evil Red Lobster. No offense to Red Lobster, but…

I guess that, now that I am no longer a “mere yute,” to borrow a phrase from the movie “My Cousin Vinnie,” I think that my recovery time is slower – considerably slower- than when I was in my twenties. Back then, in the Dark Ages, I could be out until the Clubs closed at 2:30 AM then go out with a few of the other comedians to some all-night cafes to let the adrenaline come down before heading home to sleep. The sleep was never more than two or three hours until I had to get up and shuffle off to “the day job.”

Nowadays, I find myself cuddling into the Arms of Morpheus before the 11 o’clock news begins. I have gone from being the hip dude about town into the old dude in the easy chair.

My plans for the 4th of July Weekend do not involve fireworks – unless the yutz who lives down the block decides to spend all night re-enacting the Battle of Tarawa in his driveway. I did see him parked outside of the big temporary fireworks store next to the Kroger’s.

“Buy One – Get 7000 FREE!”

Indiana and Terre Haute (That’s French for “Let’s watch the kid blow off his thumbs.”) have very lax laws and regulations about fireworks. Any idiot can buy “fireworks” that the detonation of would be an act of war in most countries. Every July 4^th and for a few days afterward this town sounds like the War of 1812. Francis Scott Key would have felt right at home inner-tubing on the Wabash River and seeing the “bombs bursting in air.”

So, on the days that I need the most rest I will have to contend with neighborhood noise levels comparable to the jet wash of a B-52.

I’ll be fine. I know that. I just might be a little grumpier than usual and more likely to nod off in mid sentence than I normally do, but I’ll be OK.

So, if you will now excuse me I am going to walk around in a circle a few times and curl up on the carpet for a little nap.

Throwback Thursday from Nov. 2015 – Grumble, Grumble, Mutiny, Mutiny, Mumble, Mumble

Throwback Thursday from Nov. 2015 – 

Grumble, Grumble, Mutiny, Mutiny, Mumble, Mumble

MY OFFICE IS CROWDED TODAY. Of course, “my office,” also doubles as a corner table in the Starbucks a few blocks from home. I can usually shut out the hubbub and foot traffic around me, but today, for some reason, it is all getting on my nerves.

Most of the people in here at this time of day are college students. This location sits almost exactly halfway between two schools. On most days they have their noses deeply buried in either textbooks or computers, but not today. Today must be a day after they have gotten their grades or test scores back. It sounds like they all did well.

Throwback Thursday from August 2015

Throwback Thursday from August 2015

 

Ooh, I Can Hear Myself Thinking

THIS IS ONE OF MY FAVORITE TIMES of the year at the Chapel of St. Arbucks here in Terre Haute (That’s French for, “Why did I buy more onion dip?”).

At this time every year we have a Scholastic Solstice of a sort. For about ten days this place is quiet. The Public Schools have resumed classes while the colleges and universities don’t kick into gear for another week or so. As a result, the usually busy St. Arbucks is an oasis of relative quiet. The decibel level drops from “Karakatoa on the Wabash” loud down to “My headache has disappeared” manageable. The difference is both thrilling and humbling.

During the summertime when the schools are out, St. Arbucks becomes a favorite haunt of the pubescent masses who come in, order a “Strawberry and Cream Frappuccino,” and think they’re drinking coffee – Oh, so grown-up. All they are really doing is getting a fortified sugar rush and turning into nonstop chatterboxes. The giggling alone from a table with 10 high school girls is enough to make my Curmudgeon Lobe work overtime.

It is different with the obligatory teenage boys who are also here, following the girls and trying to look macho. At least they are much quieter as they practice looking both sullen and somewhat dangerous or James Dean emotionally lost and in need of a cuddle.

These two factions are in St. Arbucks all summer, minus the two weeks when their parents drag them to visit the Grandparents in some version of Iowa. When they return though, they have two weeks of giggling and posing to catch up on. It is during those two weeks that we try to get out of town.

When the colleges and universities shovel their students into town they show up by the study-group load, monopolizing tables and power outlets for their computers and cell phone chargers.

As a rule the college age crowd isn’t as noisy as the younger chair-fillers. They just fill the sonic landscape with keyboard clicks, textbook page turning and low frequency murmuring about the validity of the scientific method and the real meaning of “The Fight Club.”

Whatever happened to the days when college freshmen argued philosophy in on-campus student lounges and not out in public where the rest of us can hear them and are thrown into fits of despair for the future?

It is during this all too short respite when the younger students are back learning how to cheat on tests from their underpaid teachers and the older students are still trying to figure out how to smuggle microwave ovens into their dorm rooms that the Chapel of St. Arbucks becomes a place for contemplation, reasonable discussions about unreasonable things and, on occasion, a venue for impromptu middle-aged performance art. Things that could never happen if the students were here sounding like a billion hormone driven cicadas.

At this moment I am one of four customers/worshippers here at St. Arbucks. Two of them are women in their thirties who are chatting and sipping quietly. The fourth person is seated at the table behind me and I haven’t heard a sound out of her. Perhaps someone should check to make sure that she is still alive. If she isn’t, let her be for a while – it’s nice in here right now.

Everybody, Shut up!

I’M FEELING CROWDED THIS MORNING. I’m feeling that way because I am being crowded today. On most days at 6:30 AM I have my writing corner all to myself, but today for some reason, this is the most popular place in town. Is St. Arbucks giving something away for free today?

With the crowding comes noise – People Noise. The usual background noise in the morning is made up of cars and trucks driving past, but this morning I can’t even hear the traffic going by. Instead all that I can hear is the people sitting at the next table. Three people all trying to talk at once. They are all so excited. Why I can’t understand. They are all jabbering about Real Estate. Not a topic I would usually associate with such unbridled excitement. To each his own I suppose.

Throwback Thursday from August 2015

Throwback Thursday from August 2015

Chainsaws And Britney Spears At 8 AM

SOMETIMES THE WORLD PLAYS TRICKS on me – Which is only fair because sometimes I play tricks on it. But this morning the world really had me flummoxed.

At about 8 AM I started hearing one of our neighbors firing up a chain saw. It would whine for a minute, stop, and then start up again.

“What is he doing over there,” I mumbled to myself? “It must be important for him to start that noise this early.”

I had not had my coffee yet, so my unfueled brain began to speculate about his motives. The fact that I’ve been reading a lot of Mystery Novels lately might have played into it as well.

I finally narrowed it down to two possible motives:

1. He is cutting down a tree three inches at a time.

Or

2. He is cutting up and disposing of a corpse.

What else could it be?

The Sounds Of Silence

LAST NIGHT I WAS SITTING AND READING when out of nowhere nothing happened. It startled me. Everything was quiet. For the first time this month I didn’t hear anybody shooting off fireworks in the neighborhood. I got up and stepped outside. Nothing. No fireworks, no dogs, no traffic. I pinched myself to see if I was dreaming.

I am so used to the noise of life in the city that the quiet is a bit unnerving. I snapped my fingers just to make sure that I hadn’t suddenly gone deaf.

Fiction Saturday – “And Pull The Hole… Chapter 36 Continued

Fiction Saturday

Chapter 36 Continued

Outside, the sun was beginning to go down and an offshore breeze was finally cutting through the hot and hectic city. The shopping-mad tourists were heading home and the drinking-mad tourists were arriving. The mood in Tijuana was changing, like it did everyday at this time, from commercial cordiality to alcoholic depravity. The zebra-painted donkeys that pulled small carts along the avenidas so tourists could have some unusual pictures to take home to Iowa, were being replaced by other donkeys for another kind of entertainment that Tijuana was famous for.  

A Quiet Morning – Screaming Comes Later

ON A QUIET MORNING LIKE THIS ONE WHEN IT’S JUST ME AND MY COFFEE I can feel the tensions of Life sloughing off like frost off the car’s rear window.

It is 16° degrees outside, but I don’t mind it right now because it keeps some people at home and away from me.

These days it seems like most people are screaming – at one another, at the government, at the world, at themselves. When things don’t go the way they like they start to scream thinking that will make things better – “Better” being the way they want things to be. It doesn’t work of course. It never has, it never will.

Self-Delusion is so much neater than Reality.

Flarp

IF I SAY THE WORD “FLARP” TO YOU WHAT COMES TO MIND? If you are over the age of 12 probably nothing – I hope. Unfortunately, it does carry a very specific meaning to me and I can blame several children and one adult for that.

“Flarp” is a product that is gloriously described as “Noise Putty.”

Indeed.

Go Long For Jesus.

The Time: 6:43 AM

The Place: St. Arbucks Main Chapel.

As I pulled into the parking lot, headed toward my usual Gimp Spot to leave the Toyota I noticed something unusual – the lot was almost full.

Normally at this time of day – scratch that – this time of night, the lot is all but deserted except for the cars belonging to the Early Shift Geezers who must sleep over. No matter when I arrive they are already there swilling coffee and comparing hip replacement stories.

When I stepped inside there were about fifteen additional humans in there. The extras were all young, male, and large – College students.

Dalai Lama – Yes. Pauly Shore – No.

IT’S AN UNUSUAL DAY AT ST. ARBUCKS. It is a little before 8 AM and I am the only worshipper present. The Drive-Thru chapel is doing a booming business, but inside – I’m it.

On most mornings this place is hopping and quite noisy. This morning it is a good place for contemplative thought. Maybe they should put up a new sign out renaming this place as: “The Dalai Lama Coffee House.” Ommmmmmm.

What Is That Sound?

 I HEARD AN UNWELCOME NOISE as I stepped out of my car this morning at St. Arbucks. It was a noise I’ve heard a million times before. Each time I hear it I cringe and wish that Annie Oakley was still alive.

The Crows are returning to the city.

Throwback Thursday from July 2015

My Butt Is Dragging

GOING UP AND DOWN STAIRS is difficult today because my butt is dragging and it makes a disturbing sound as it bounces on each step.

SHH-Thump, SHH-Thump, SHH-Thump.

I’m in recovery from our vacation that covered 1600+ miles in one week, more walking/hiking than I’ve done in years and that, as of yesterday, I am one year older.

No wonder my butt is dragging. It may take a week of intense sleeping for me to get my sedentary mojo back.

If I Had A Pony

SOME WINDOWS ARE BETTER THAN OTHERS. There are some windows where I can’t wait to close the drapes so I don’t have to see what’s on the other side of the glass.

I’ve stayed in places where the view outside the window was a brick wall or another window looking back at me. Those are the windows that get the drapes closed immediately.

Hope Is A Dangerous Thing

A FEW NIGHTS AGO we were watching “The Shawshank Redemption.” It is on my personal “Top Ten List” of favorite movies – and I am very picky about what films make it onto that list.

In the obligatory After Movie Discussion, my wife, the lovely and equally picky, Dawn, and I asked each other, “What is the overarching theme of the movie?” There were a number of possible answers to that question.

Was it about Revenge? It was, but only momentarily. Loneliness? Or was it about the effects on a person of prolonged confinement? Or was it just about Survival?

It Makes Me Want To Thai One On

THE EVER CURIOUS GNOME THAT I AM, it is a common thing for me to go out looking for stupidity. True, I produce enough of my own, but some days you just can’t have enough. Stupidity is like potato chips.

Using that simile – I recently bumped into a story out of England that might qualify for a car load of Pringles.

“An organization for the deaf is holding a major festival in England this summer. It’s scheduled for July, in a town called Eggington. But the police there are fighting against it, and trying to get its license revoked . . . because they’re worried it’ll be too LOUD.”

I repeat, for latecomers – this event is a festival for the DEAF. But because there is to be music at the festival, the locals are concerned that it might get out of hand.